Will Obama Really Nominate a SecDef Who Said 'Let the Jews Pay For It'?

President Obama seems set to nominate former Sen. Chuck Hagel to head up the DoD.

White House officials and sources close to Hagel declined to confirm to The Cable that Hagel is the president’s choice to be the replace Leon Panetta at the helm of the Pentagon, but several sources close to the process said have told The Cable that the White House and Hagel have been in touch on a regular basis and that Hagel is indeed the expected pick. Decisions about the timing and logistics of the announcement are being finalized now.

The Cable had previously confirmed that Hagel successfully complete the vetting process, as have Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy.

Did that vetting process pick up this?

Hagel, who served as president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990, expressed intense opposition to the USO Haifa Center during a tumultuous 1989 meeting with Jewish leaders, according to multiple sources involved in the fight to keep the post open.

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational. …

“He essentially told us that if we wanted to keep the USO [in Haifa] open—and when I say ‘we’, he meant ‘the Jews’—he said the Jews could pay for it,” said Halteman, who recalled being taken aback by the comment.

“I told him at the time that I found his comments to be anti-Semitic,” she said. “He was playing into that dual loyalty thing.”

Hagel would be an odd choice. There’s little love for him among Republicans, whom he has betrayed more than once. His old anti-gay remarks weaken him on the left. His “Let the Jews pay for it” riff goes along with his anti-Israel streak and makes it tough for any mainstream Democrat to support him fully.

Obama may be using him the way he used the possibility of Susan Rice’s nomination to head State, as a stalking horse to get another nominee approved.